NEW ACQUISITION: MARS AT SUNRISE

MARS AT SUNRISE weaves documentary interviews and fantastical reenactments through a painful, personal, and historical narrative. During her first trip to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, an Iranian-American musician meets a Palestinian painter who tells her the story of his imprisonment, torture, and release all by the same Israeli soldier. Habie dramatizes the painter’s story by combining original and traditional Palestinian and Iranian music, poetry, and theatre with surreal montage sequences. As the painter and soldier become figures in each other’s daydreams and nightmares, the ensuing mash-up of techniques, media, and references creates a powerfully immersive experience.

This beautifully-photographed and complicated film explores the vitality and the limits of art as an expression of resistance and imagination. MARS AT SUNRISE is a brilliant addition to Cinema Politica’s ArtDox sidebar series, and its sumptuous color palate will instantly reward the largest, brightest screens that it can find.

Cinema Politica is the largest campus and community based documentary screening network in the world. We are a Montreal-based non-profit media arts organization dedicated to the dissemination of independent political works by Canadian and international filmmakers.